Phantom Horse (5 page)

“That still doesn’t explain why anyone would take one of Veronica’s gloves and not the other,” Lisa pointed out. “Does that mean we’re looking for a one-handed, cold-headed thief who reads murder mysteries?”

Stevie closed the gate behind them, and the girls started across the wide meadow that lay between them and the woods. “Well,” Stevie said, looking thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, Veronica’s gloves are awfully suspicious. And that means Veronica is starting to look awfully suspicious to me.”

“You think Veronica is the thief?” Lisa asked with a laugh. “Come on. Why would she steal her own glove?”

“Attention,” Stevie replied. “Think about it. What better way for her to—”

At that moment Stevie’s words were interrupted by a sudden shrill shriek from Starlight. Without warning, the horse dropped one shoulder, spun around in a tight circle, and with one strong buck sent Carole flying into a nearby bush.

Lisa gasped. “What—” she began.

But Stevie interrupted her. “Go check on Carole,” she said quickly. “I’ll get Starlight.” She urged Belle forward after the bay gelding, who was still bucking and kicking as he raced across the meadow toward the woods.

Lisa obeyed Stevie’s command, sliding off Prancer and hurrying to where Carole was trying to clamber out of the bush.

“Are you okay? Did you break anything?” Lisa called anxiously.
She dropped Prancer’s reins in front of the mare, praying that all her careful lessons on ground-tying would pay off. Prancer cast a nervous eye across the field to where Belle was just catching up with Starlight, but she stood still, and Lisa breathed a sigh of relief as she hurried to Carole’s side—or as close to Carole’s side as she could get, since Carole was still entangled in the bush.

“I’m still in one piece,” Carole said as Lisa reached out to help her to her feet. She straightened up and winced. “But I think I’m going to be one giant bruise in an hour or two. Not to mention the lovely scratches I’m going to have all over my body, thanks to that bush.”

“It’s probably lucky the bush was there to catch you,” Lisa pointed out sensibly. “What happened, anyway?” Lisa reached forward to pull a branch out of her friend’s hair. “One minute Starlight was acting perfectly normal, and the next he just went crazy.”

Carole nodded, brushing leaves and dirt off her jeans as she glanced over at Starlight. Stevie had managed to catch him by the bridle and was now talking to him soothingly as she led him back toward the others. “I don’t know. He’s never done that before,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “He caught me by surprise.”

“As soon as he calms down enough we’d better check his hooves,” Lisa said. “He might have stepped on a piece of glass or something.”

“I guess it’s possible something punctured his frog,” Carole
said doubtfully. The frog was the sensitive center part of a horse’s foot. “But I’ve never seen that kind of reaction to an injury like that. Besides, he doesn’t seem to be limping.”

Lisa looked and saw that Carole was right. She shrugged. “Well, something must have gotten into him.”

“I know,” Carole said. She gulped, thinking of Troy’s story. “It’s—it’s like he suddenly became a whole different horse.” She immediately felt foolish for saying it out loud. The groom’s ghost story had spooked her, but that was no reason to start acting crazy and superstitious.

Luckily Lisa hadn’t heard. She was hurrying forward to help Stevie with Starlight. The gelding was still giving an occasional shudder and tossing his head, but he had calmed down considerably. “How is he?” Lisa asked, taking Starlight’s bridle as Stevie slid down from Belle’s back.

“Much better already,” Stevie said. “In fact, he told me he’s very sorry about the whole incident. Are you okay, Carole?”

“I’m fine,” Carole said. She was gazing at her horse with a worried expression.

“Come on, let’s check him over and see if we can figure out what set him off,” Stevie said. She could tell that Carole was shaken by the fall, so it was up to her to take charge. “Lisa, if you’ll hold his head I’ll take a look at his hooves. Carole, why don’t you check the saddle—maybe a thorn slipped under there or something.”

Lisa was patting Starlight’s sweaty neck soothingly a few
minutes later when she noticed a small bump a few inches in front of his withers. She ran her fingers over it, and Starlight flinched and tossed his head. “Hey, look at this,” she said to her friends. “I think I may have found the problem.”

Carole and Stevie looked at Starlight’s neck.

“Insect bite?” Stevie asked.

Carole nodded. “Looks like it.”

“Well, I guess that would explain the reaction,” Stevie said. “But it must have been some bug. Ouch.”

“Do you think it was a bee?” Lisa asked.

Stevie peered closely at the bump. “I don’t see a stinger,” she said. “It was probably a fly, or maybe one of those flying red ants. Those bites hurt. My brother Alex sat on a whole family of them once, and believe me, he screamed a lot louder than Starlight.”

“We’d better get him back to the stable so Max can take a look,” Carole said. “I’ll ride behind one of you, and the other one can lead him, okay?”

“Hold on just a minute,” Lisa said. “Starlight doesn’t seem to be in any serious pain, right? So shouldn’t you follow that advice you’re always giving other people and get back in the saddle right away?”

“She’s right, Carole,” Stevie said. “You can ride him back. It won’t hurt him, and it’ll make both of you feel better.”

Carole bit her lip, glancing up at Starlight. He gazed back at her calmly, as if nothing had happened. He was her horse, and she loved him. She had fallen off him before, and she
would again. It was all just a part of riding. So why didn’t she want to follow her friends’ advice and climb back aboard? She didn’t know the answer to that, but something inside her was resisting what her logical mind was telling her.

She decided the best thing to do was to ignore her nervousness. “Give me a leg up, will you, Stevie?”

Stevie stepped forward and cupped her hands. Taking a deep breath, Carole swung aboard Starlight’s broad back.

“There you go,” Stevie said. “Feel better?”

Carole nodded, then urged Starlight forward. She rode him in a circle, then a figure eight. Then she signaled for a trot. He responded immediately, shifting into the smooth, comfortable gait Carole had always loved. She automatically began posting, and Stevie and Lisa, obviously satisfied that all was well, turned back to their own horses. But for some reason Carole couldn’t relax and enjoy the ride. Each time she had fallen before, her feelings of nervousness had gone away after a few seconds back in the saddle. But this time they seemed to have settled in a hard, cold lump in her stomach, and they weren’t showing any sign of melting.

Stevie and Lisa remounted and trotted to join her. “Everything all right now?” Stevie asked.

“Sure,” Carole said as the three friends turned their horses toward home. “No problem.”

But deep down inside, she wasn’t sure she meant it.

C
AROLE
TIGHTENED
THE
girth around Starlight’s belly, then checked all his tack once again before mounting. She was heading out to the ring to work with him on jumping, and she wanted to be sure nothing went wrong. She patted his neck as she rode forward to touch the lucky horseshoe. But strangely, it wasn’t in its usual place on the wall.

Carole frowned, wondering what had happened to it. She had never seen the doorway without the comforting shape of the horseshoe beside it, and the bare wall looked very odd to her. Still, there was nothing she could do about it now. The stable was deserted, so there was no one she could ask about it. Besides, she didn’t want to waste any of her training time with Starlight. With a shrug, she touched the spot
on the wall where the horseshoe normally hung and rode outside.

When she reached the outdoor ring she got to work right away. A small jump course was already set up, and after warming up with a few turns around the outside edge of the ring, she sent Starlight toward the first obstacle. He cleared it easily, and Carole smiled. She had the perfect horse; she’d always known it, and Starlight kept proving it to her over and over. He continued through the course, taking each jump with more room to spare between his hooves and the top rail. Before long it seemed almost as if he were flying.

Then they cantered toward the final obstacle, a bright red fence with shrubbery around it. Carole frowned a little when she saw it. For some reason she hadn’t noticed it until this moment, and when she did it struck her as odd. First, she didn’t remember seeing the red-railed jump before. Second, it seemed strange that anyone would take the time to set up such an elaborate jump for a training course.

The seconds seemed to pass very slowly as Starlight made his approach to the jump, and Carole’s mind seemed to be working very slowly as well. One part of her wanted to pull up and avoid the red jump, but for some reason she didn’t seem able to do it. Her hands felt numb and helpless on the reins, but Starlight wasn’t paying any attention to his rider’s distress. He was gaining speed, and for a moment Carole was afraid he was going to plow right through the fence. But at just the right moment the gelding’s forefeet lifted off the
ground, and Carole felt his powerful hindquarters propelling them forward and upward, like an exploding cannon. When she glanced down, the jump seemed to be yards beneath them.

Starlight’s landing was perfect, like the rest of the jump. Carole’s hands relaxed and she started to smile, but her smile froze when the horse suddenly came to a complete stop and began shaking his head and snorting. Perplexed by his behavior, Carole signaled for a trot. But Starlight ignored her, standing stock-still except for his head, which was now rolling from side to side so far that Carole could see the whites of his eyes. Something was very wrong, but Carole wasn’t sure what it was. She gave the signal again, more firmly this time.

Suddenly, with a quick, powerful movement, Starlight reared and bucked. Carole flew out of the saddle, landing with a loud thud against the jump behind them. She shook her head to clear the red haze out of her mind. The first thing she saw was the red posts of the jump. As she stared at them, trying to get her eyes to focus properly, she heard an unfamiliar noise behind her. When she turned she saw Starlight, except that he didn’t look like the Starlight she knew. This was a wild, unknown Starlight, with eyes that were beginning to burn as if lit from within by a red fire. And those eyes were trained directly on her as he pawed the ground and leaped forward …

Carole awoke in a cold sweat and sat bolt upright, her
eyes staring wildly into the dark corners of her bedroom, looking for a ghost horse to spring out at her at any second. As soon as she realized what had happened—it had all been a dream, just a bad dream—her heart started to slow down to its normal rate. She took a deep breath to calm herself and glanced at the digital alarm clock beside her bed. It was four o’clock in the morning.

“It was just a nightmare, that’s all,” Carole whispered to herself, shifting her legs, which had become entangled in the sheets. She flipped her pillow over to the cool side, then leaned back and closed her eyes. As soon as she did, the red-eyed phantom Starlight reappeared. Carole’s eyes flew open again, and she sat up with a groan. She had the sinking feeling she wouldn’t be going back to sleep that night.

B
Y
THE
TIME
Carole dragged herself downstairs for breakfast, her father had already left for work. Carole had spent a long time in the shower, standing under the coldest water she could bear to try to wake herself up, and she hadn’t heard him leave. She remembered that he had a big project going on at work that week, which meant he had been putting in long hours at the office. In fact, she’d spent the past few nights alone watching the scary old movies they usually enjoyed together at this time of year. She felt annoyed that he had rushed away without even saying good morning. She would have liked to talk her nightmare over with him.

Heaving an irritated sigh, she grabbed two slices of whole-wheat bread and stuck them in the toaster. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she knew she would be starving by lunchtime if she didn’t eat something. She leaned on the counter as she waited for the toast to pop up, and her mind drifted back to her dream. It had seemed so real; she could still remember the feeling of flight as Starlight’s hind legs propelled them over the jumps. But it hadn’t been real. She had to keep reminding herself of that. Starlight was in his stall at Pine Hollow right now, and he didn’t have glowing red eyes or a look of murderous rage or—

Carole jumped when the toast popped out of the toaster. Feeling annoyed with herself for being so nervous, she grabbed the toast, burning her fingers. She dropped the toast on the counter and stuck her fingers in her mouth, feeling more annoyed than ever. It was going to be a long day.

C
AROLE
WENT
FROM
class to class as usual, but her mind wasn’t on her schoolwork. She had expected her memory of the nightmare to fade as the day wore on. That was what usually happened, whether the dream in question was good, bad, or indifferent. Once, years ago, she had had a wonderful dream about riding in the Grand National steeplechase race. She had wanted to remember and savor the dream for as long as possible. But by the time she had finished breakfast, she couldn’t remember what she had been wearing, and by lunchtime she had forgotten her mount’s name and what he
looked like. By the next day all she had been able to retain was the wonderful feeling the dream had left her with.